Mary Anne Schmitt-Carey

President of Say Yes to Education

Mary Anne Schmitt-Carey is President of Say Yes to Education. Say Yes is a national nonprofit that galvanizes communities by partnering with them to help give every public high school graduate access to a college or other post-secondary scholarship. Say Yes also works with communities to set milestones along the pathway to post-secondary readiness, and to organize and deliver supports and services intended to eliminate predictable barriers to achievement, particularly for students from low-income backgrounds.

For six years Schmitt-Carey was President and Chief Executive Officer of New American Schools, which merged with American Institutes for Research, helping that nonprofit grow from a pilot to the model for Comprehensive School Reform, a national school improvement program.

During 11 years at New American Schools, Schmitt-Carey also served as Chief Operating Officer, Vice President, and Director of Communications and Public Policy. She was previously Director of the Goals 2000 Community Project at the U.S. Department of Education, where she created and managed a support network for communities seeking to improve education.

In 2012, Schmitt-Carey was appointed to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Education Reform Commission, which was charged with making recommendations for boosting student achievement and for making education spending more efficient in New York State.

She earned her master’s from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and graduated magna cum laude from SUNY Albany with a bachelor’s in political science and English.